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Posts by Obbe
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2018-01-11 at 10:27 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Captain Falcon What is to say that the phenomenon that causes the rainbow could not be interpreted into a colour in the exact same way that your brain does? The same way that some assortment of 1s and 0s on a flash drive could be interpreted into a picture. The colour "blue" could very well be physically manifest in the wavelength of light being emitted from there. It doesn't exist any more or less in your brain than it does in the wavelength of light.
Something could interpret the information as a rainbow the same way my brain does; but the point is that until something does, there is no rainbow, just the information. What's to stop something from interpreting that information into a picture of a cat, or a novel? To quote something you yourself said earlier in the thread, the arrangement of 1s and 0s that could become a picture of a cat, is not "objectively" a picture of a cat. It has to be interpreted in an extremely specific context to become a picture of a cat. That informational content doesn't exist in any meaningful way, it's just one way of interpreting the physical content of the harddrive. If you open that picture of a cat as a text file, it's not going to be a picture of a cat any more.
As I said, nothing is coloured until light enters an eye and a brain turns that light into colour (or something equivalent to an eye and brain). Yes, things exist that reflect or absorb different wavelengths of light. Again, those things are not blue unless light enters an eye and a brain turns that information into whatever you experience as "blue".
Don't you agree with that? -
2018-01-11 at 8:38 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Captain Falcon The phenomenon of a rainbow which corresponds to colours exists. The phenomenon of our perception of colour from that other phenomenon exists. The colour red being a description of EM waves between 430 and 480 THz is no different than our description of a box being 1 metre high. The metric of 1 metre is as arbitrary as our assignment of colour but it describes a concrete physical characteristic of the box in relative terms. Either every one of our experiences objectively exist (yes) or none of them do (prove it).
I never claimed "experiences don't exist".
The phenomenon that causes a rainbow to appear exists outside of your head. The appearance of the rainbow takes place entirely inside your head. -
2018-01-11 at 7:27 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Captain Falcon What does it mean for something to be coloured? The experience corresponds to a phenomenon in the world. Of course it's coloured. Your experience is relative to the external phenomena you observe.
Most people make the mistake of believing we see reality with our eyes. Like our brains see the image captured on our retina. They are mistaken. The physiology of sight is more like a antenna and TV. Your antenna recieves radio waves and sends a signal to your TV via the RV cable. Your TV converts this signal and creates a picture. It does so using just 3 different colours, but using different combinations we can see all the colours.
Our eyes are light wave antennas. There are 3 types of cones on our retina and each responds to only a certain wavelength of light. When triggered, these cones send a electrical impulse along our optic nerve to the brains imaging centre. Here the brain converts these electrical impulses and creates a visual representation of our surroundings. It actually combines the impulses from both eyes and creates a 3 dimensional picture in our head about 30 times a second. What you see, is that picture.
It's impossible for us to be seeing the world with our eyes, because we would see everything upside down. Our brains turn the picture so things make sense to us. So yes, light waves exist, but light waves have no colour. A rainbow is a arch of colours. It exists only in our head. -
2018-01-11 at 7:20 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Fox Paws I did. I asked you to define “self” and you said that the “self” is “whatever you think you are” and then I said “ok then I think I’m not an illusion”. Therefore my “self” is not an illusion. QED.
If you want me to continue this conversation then you’ll need to change your definition of “self”.
No you need to re-read my last post on that thread and actually consider what was said instead of acting like it's meaningless, if you want to continue the conversation. -
2018-01-11 at 7:18 PM UTC in Who is the nickname "sport" supposed to insult?Always makes me think of this character:
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2018-01-11 at 7:16 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
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2018-01-11 at 7:14 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
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2018-01-11 at 7:13 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
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2018-01-11 at 7:08 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Okay, but to say that the experience of blueness is not the same as something being blue is like a "duh", that's not an insight, you're saying thing A is not the same as thing B. The sense experience objectively exists and the physical phenomenon that spurs it objectively exists. If your point is that the sense experience isn't literally hanging in the sky, then wtf ki d of insight is that?
I know an institute that would value this conclusion:
No, you don't seem to get it yet.
Nothing is coloured until light enters an eye and a brain turns that light into colour. Yes, things exist that reflect or absorb different wavelengths of light. Again, those things are not blue unless light enters an eye and a brain turns that information into whatever you experience as "blue".
Are you getting it yet? -
2018-01-11 at 4:12 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Then you agree with my point.
At what point did you think we were in disagreement? As I already said, I won't disagree with you if you want to claim that "red" or "blue" is a specific arrangement of one's and zeros so long as those ones and zeros refer to activity in a person's brain and not something floating up in the sky. -
2018-01-11 at 1:51 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
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2018-01-11 at 12:51 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Well of course. But that's a meaningless statement, nothing that happens inside your head is literally the thing that is happening outside of it, that's also the case for a computer experiencing the same thing through a sensor.
I guess "meaningless" means something different to you. Also you might believe a computer can have the same conscious experience as you and maybe it does but that seems impossible to actually know unless you could become that computer and that computer could become you. -
2018-01-11 at 12:38 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Captain Falcon There is no reason to believe that an experience has anything more special than an arrangement of 1s and 0s.
A person's experience could be described using ones and zeros but I don't agree that is the same as having that person's conscious experience. That seems beyond the scope of this topic though, the point of which is that colour is something happening in your head and not out there in the world. I won't disagree with you if you want to claim that "red" or "blue" is a specific arrangement of one's and zeros so long as those ones and zeros refer to activity in a person's brain and not something floating up in the sky. -
2018-01-11 at 12:14 PM UTC in The Retarded Thread: Get Rekt, Faggot!
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2018-01-11 at 2:36 AM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Lanny A hard-line physicalist would disagree, but I do happen to agree with that. But if I understand where this is going then we come back to the point of saying "look a rainbow!" does not have the same meaning as "I am having the experience of viewing a rainbow" as the former seems to pick out something in the world and the latter attempts to communicate an internal state.
Exactly! -
2018-01-11 at 2:31 AM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Captain Falcon A materialist would argue that there is no such thing as "only existing in your mind". Scientifically and rationally, there is no reason to believe in a mind-body separation. What exists in the mind can also be described in physical terms. Such is the case for all concepts in a materialist worldview. Ultimately, all "concepts" are merely relationships between physical phenomena, and these relationships are also present only by virtue of their physical properties.
So colours don't exist "only in your mind" any more than electronic data exists "only in your SD card's mind". The relationship might be harder to describe than flash memory but it's not a special case.
The information on the flash drive is only ones and zeros until it is interpreted by a system and turned into a picture or a song. -
2018-01-11 at 2:29 AM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Lanny That doesn't seem true at all. Mathematical objects don't seem to have any existence outside of minds but that doesn't really make them subjective.
Yeah ok, I guess you're right. Still, there is a difference between measuring and describing the activity in a persons brain, and actually having that persons conscious experience. -
2018-01-11 at 12:59 AM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Captain Falcon Do I believe that the snakelion is a real creature outside my mind? No. Does the experience or idea exist in some physical or objective capacity? Sure!
If your point is that there is no arc made up of the qualia of colours then you're right but that is a fucking retarded point that makes no sense. Of course the qualitative content of colour is inside our mind (and perhaps our brain itself). That experience objectively exists, and the physical phenomenon that causes that experience objectively exists. What part of the rainbow, thus, does not objectively exist?
Things that only exist in your mind are called "subjective". -
2018-01-11 at 12:23 AM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Captain Falcon And there is no evidence that the "mind" and it's products are outside of the purview of objective description.
Im not arguing that it is. If I mention a snake with a lions head, you are probably picturing one in your mind right now. Because your mind exists and is made of objective things, do you believe the lion-headed snake in your mind objectively exists? -
2018-01-10 at 11:44 PM UTC in Do rainbows exist objectively?
Originally posted by Captain Falcon I didn't say it was. Read it again. You have to establish that colour, including the experience of colour, is not itself an objectively quantifiable phenomenon. Just because it feels that way doesn't make it so.
I never claimed otherwise. Only that colours only exist in our minds, therefore it's impossible for an arch of colours to exist in reality. Light exists in a variety of different frequencies. It takes an eye and a mind to convert those light waves into colour.
